SECURITY OF PAYMENT ACT: ADJUDICATION REVIEW AND SETTING ASIDE OF ADJUDICATION DETERMINATION

Abstract

The adjudication under the SOPA has been introduced to promote a speedy and cost effective dispute resolution method for contracting parties and facilitate the cash flow in construction industry. However, there may be a risk of mistakes or miscarriage of injustice in an adjudication determination (AD) as an AD has to be made within a limited time period under the Act. Thus, adjudication review and setting aside of AD are two ways to challenge the AD in redressing any injustice for both contracting parties.

As various circumstances could influence the way to challenge the AD and the Act is silent on identifying specific circumstance which adjudication review and setting aside could be applicable in Singapore construction industry, the purpose of this dissertation is to identify such circumstances and ascertain the impact and reliability of the adjudication review and setting aside of AD through local case studies.

From this study, it was found that the adjudication review focus on the substantive issues of payment claim/AD and setting aside application deals with technical issues in jurisdictional challenges. Besides, the impact of the provisions for AD challenges under the Act is discussed and proposal for the improvement of the provisions are recommended. The limitations and areas for further research are also discussed.